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There is also no way to surf the menu of options anonymously. Obama and his minions were afraid of the response if folks saw how high the premiums and deductibles actually are. So, they made folks create an account... Thinking if one saw the subsidy available first, that would soften the blow a little... Right. Keep us in the dark and feed us mushrooms.

My cynical self thinks it is even deeper than hiding the true costs. They want to know WHO is lurking on the site. With the information required by the site the government know all about you. Those the administration thinks are friendly to them will get welcome packages and rides to the next election.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

What if all we have today is what we gave thanks for yesterday?

Let the views of others educate and inform you, but let your decisions be a product of your own conclusions. (Jim Rohn)

"Healthcare.gov was initially going to include an option to browse before registering," report Christopher Weaver and Louise Radnofsky in the Wall Street Journal. "But that tool was delayed, people familiar with the situation said." Why was it delayed? "An HHS spokeswomansaid the agency wanted to ensure that users were aware of their eligibility for subsidies that could help pay for coverage, before they started seeing the prices of policies." (Emphasis added.)

Private investment demands results, or the capital goes elsewhere. By contrast, the president is spending taxpayer money with political, not financial, goals. No business plan. No beta test. No consequences. If the Obamacare exchange is a catastrophe, so what? Taxpayers can't disinvest.

Because the exchange's creator, health consulting firm Aon Hewitt, has had to meet customer demands or lose business. So before it rolled out its exchange in 2011, Hewitt first beta tested its exchange on its own employees.

One missing point is that a disaster like the healthcare.gov launch would result in firings from the top on down. In the federal government, failure usually means a bigger budget and larger staff.

This last quote is from the American Thinker author.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Hewitt administered our private exchange when I was at Siemens back in the 1990's. They have at least two decades of experience with this.

I knew one of the VP's in HR when I was there. When we put over 70,000 onto the exchange, HR worked with Hewitt for months leading up to the rollout. Hewitt had databases given to them by Siemens. Everyone was in the system before a single one of us logged on to choose our benefit package from the menu. I am sure that this is how it also went for Hewitt's newest customers. One of the weaknesses of the system the government set up was that before you could look at available plans, you had to register, with that data having to be shared between several systems. If one system was bogged down or had an error, the whole system bogged down.

"For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." -- Luke 12:48

Buzz, there have been some who suspect that the website purposely was structured as it was because the users were going to get sticker shock if they saw the prices before they saw if they were eligible for a subsidy. Mentioned that in post #33. Would suspect that the people who did the code anticipated this was going to screw things up.

Unfortunately, if the system tells them they qualify for a subsidy, and the system doesn't get it right, the participant will get an unpleasant surprise when he files his tax returns if the subsidy is disallowed & has to be paid back. I've seen in several places that the system may not be accurate about computing the subsidies.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Reports are emerging that shysters are using Tennessee residents’ relative lack of knowledge about the new health care law to defraud them.

Scam artists, for example, are making calls claiming they need Social Security numbers to sign people up for a new ObamaCare insurance card, according to a statement from the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance.
“We’ve been made aware of one scam, in particular,” said TDCI spokeswoman Kate Abernathy.

“One of our navigator agencies let us know that there was an individual calling people saying that he or she could have walked him through the application process for $100 for a navigator certified application counselor service, but that information is completely incorrect. That is a free service that is supposed to remain free.”

The federal government, along with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, began sending out advisories against possible fraud related to ObamaCare many months ago, Abernathy said.

This doesn't even take into consideration the security failings of the system itself.

I'm still concerned about that line of code that says "privacy is not to be expected" (paraphrase). That's a zinger.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

While bankruptcy and union lawyers continue to battle it out, the city has already announced significant changes to its retiree health benefits program. Effective Jan.1, retired city workers under age 65 will no longer receive full coverage from the state and will instead receive a $125 stipend to shop in Michigan’s health-care exchange under the newly-rolled out Affordable Care Act.

Retired city workers already eligible for Medicare will continue to have “most or all” of their costs covered by the city, according to The Detroit Free Press . At $6 billion, health-care benefits for retired city workers are nearly one-third of the city’s total $18 billion in liabilities. The Detroit Free Press also reports the city estimates these cuts will reduce coverage costs for retirees to $50 million or less from $170 million.

the Chicago Tribune, blasts Obama Care, and not just the crippling technical issues that have marred the launch. Getting to the heart of the debacle, the Tribune points to what much of the media won't: the fact that millions are going to lose the insurance and doctor Obama promised they could keep; and that Obama's signature legislation should probably cover therapy for sticker shock:

Quoting the Trib

There are more problems. People who have individual insurance coverage are finding that Obama's oft-repeated promise — "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" — is just not true. They are being told by insurers that their existing plans expire on Dec. 31 and they must choose new coverage. They're learning that insurers managed to offer lower-cost plans by narrowing the networks of hospitals and doctors that are available or by upping the out-of-pocket expenses. Unless people are careful in selecting coverage, they may be surprised to find they have to pay much more for out-of-network care to go to their doctors or get treated at the best hospitals. Federal officials argue that they'll work out the kinks in the system in plenty of time for people to sign up by Dec. 15 for coverage that begins Jan. 1. Yes, the techies might be able to work out the computer network problems by then. But that's not a given.

The deeper problems of cost and coverage in Obamacare are going to require an admission by the administration that this government management of the health care market is extraordinarily complicated and will be very costly for many people. The law has to change.

Wonder if Rahm will revoke their business license?

The American people can defund ObamaCare simply by refusing to sign up -- especially the young healthy people really getting gouged by this program.

The Chicago Tribune endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008 and again in 2012.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.

Federal officials did not permit testing of the Obamacare healthcare.gov website or issue final system requirements until four to six days before its Oct. 1 launch, according to an individual with direct knowledge of the project.

The individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the troubled Obamacare website project as suffering from top-level management disarray, changing systems requirements and recurring delays.

The root cause of the problems was a pivotal decision by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services officials to act as systems integrator, the central coordinator for the entire program. Usually this role is reserved for the prime information technology contractor.

As a result, full testing of the site was delayed until four to six days before the fateful Oct. 1 launch of the health care exchanges, the individual said.

“Normally a system this size would need 4-6 months of testing and performance tuning, not 4-6 days,” the individual said.

So ... the bureaucrats should have delayed the whole thing for 4 to 6 months in order to roll it out without this hassle?

Another person, a former employee of CGI Federal — the private-sector contractor hired to build healthcare.gov — said the government’s insistence on being the systems integrator resulted in disastrous consequences for the website.

The former employee said that “requirements came late, CMS dictated the design, especially the sign-up-before-viewing-plans, and there was absolutely not enough time for testing.”

Another former CMS contract employee who also requested anonymity said, “CMS was not capable of being the integrator. ... An integrator used to be someone like an IBM. That is how this business used to be run. CMS is not an integrator. CMS operates as numerous disparate organizations. I often recommended we get a good, strong integrator like an IBM to look at the entire mess.

“I wonder why the president did not have better technical advisers. He ran a huge risk with this,” the former contract employee said.

When we look at what a mess the Rs made of their budget battle tied into delaying the implementation of O-care, one might consider that the Ds are equally good at shooting themselves in the foot. At the moment the Ds are perceived as having "won" this battle. If it takes 6 mos. to fix the mess, it might have significant impact on the mid-terms in 2014? Not to mention that the increased costs for many, will have time to hit home; and 2013 tax returns may bring surprises if subsidies are disallowed and/or if the fines for upper mid-income people who chose to pay the fine find out just how much that fine will be.

Many people also don't seem to realize that the subsidy amounts go directly to the insurance companies. They will never see that money in their own hands. The subsidy will reduce the amount of their monthly premium by the amount that the govt sends to the insurance company ... but they may still be paying more for their health insurance than before; and they might also have a larger deductible.

Don't know if I posted about hospitals requiring the full deductible to be paid up front. Let's say that the deductible is $10,000; and you need a $30,000 procedure at a hospital. Before admittance, the patient will be required to pay the $10,000 ... because the hospitals have already figured out that many people who used to have a $3500 deductible will be hard-pressed to come up with that extra $6500 when all is said and done.

I haven't seen it mentioned what the co-pays are for some of these policies, but the hospitals could also ask for the co-pays up front as well. Typical policies still have a co-pay even after the deductible has been met. Medicare does have a 20% co-pay after the deductible, and that is why people get a Medicare "supplement" from a private insuror since that 20% could become a big number for a serious health problem.

G.Clinchy@gmail.com"Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none ever happened." -Libby Fudim

​I don't use the PM feature, so just email me direct at the address shown above.